


Pink, Puckered Lines

by whatthedruidscallme



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Battle wounds, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Healing Magic, M/M, Merthur - Freeform, Pain, lots of blood in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthedruidscallme/pseuds/whatthedruidscallme
Summary: A wretched moan leaves Arthur’s mouth, and Merlin’s gaze is drawn back. His hand, already wet and red, strokes Arthur’s cheek with intense, rhythmic little movements. He leaves small marks like painted fingerprints. “Arthur? Arthur, love, can you hear me? Can you hear me?”Day 3 of Merthur Week 2020
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 116
Collections: Merthur Week 2020





	Pink, Puckered Lines

The tang of blood is thick in the air. Snow is falling soft and heavy, already heaped white on the ground, settling on corpses that stare up at it with eyes that can no longer see. Their blood still dribbles in dark streams that steam when they hit the snow, freezing sluggishly, viscous and dark like old tree sap. 

The screaming white noise of cries and exhausted grunts, swords clanging and arrows whistling, shrieks of pain and the soft, wet cleave of skin fills the clearing. Camelot’s bright cloaks are garishly red, vulgar against a scene Merlin has been privy to far too many times, but he can’t spare a moment’s thought for it over the clogging haze of fear in his brain. 

He ducks into the tent on the edge of the clearing, ignoring the curses that are coming from within, the dried blood that scrapes along his hand as he pulls the tent’s opening aside, the repellent stench of injury. He halts the moment he’s inside. 

“Arthur,” he breathes. 

He’s there, lying on the hay-stuffed bedroll they call a mattress. His bright hair is damp with sweat, face twisted in a ghastly expression of pain, eyes distant and glazed over for the instant Merlin sees them before they close. His arm lies limply over his abdomen, which is sopping with blood. It pools around Arthur’s body, soaking into the bedroll, drying on his skin. Pained whimpers keep escaping his mouth, and his chest heaves up and down, shallow and erratic. 

“No.” Merlin drops to his knees next to the sickbed, placing a shaking hand over Arthur’s slack one. He’s close enough to see the wound now, the slippery flesh gaping open, the glimpse of pinkish insides, the sickening way his blood flushes out of him as his heart tries helplessly to pump it through his body. “Gods above and below, my love, sweetheart, you’re…” 

“We don’t have Gaius,” someone says, and Merlin jumps and whirls around. Leon is standing there with his hands curled into trembling fists. His face is nearly as pallid as his king’s. “We don’t know what to do for him.” 

A wretched moan leaves Arthur’s mouth, and Merlin’s gaze is drawn back. His hand, already wet and red, strokes Arthur’s cheek with intense, rhythmic little movements. He leaves small marks like painted fingerprints. “Arthur? Arthur, love, can you hear me? Can you hear me?” 

Arthur’s eyes flutter open, and Merlin draws in a shuddery gasp. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, if he had expected Arthur’s eyes to be grey or empty, but they are as agonizingly blue as ever, focusing on Merlin with difficulty. 

“Mor...morning, gorgeous,” he croaks, and Merlin chokes out a wild, watery laugh. 

“Are you okay? How do you feel?” 

“I--everything--everything hurts,” Arthur says with effort. Sweat drips from his forehead, and Merlin strokes his hair back.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, everything’s going to be fine, sweetheart. You just have to stay still for me. Leon, get out,” Merlin says without turning around.

“I--” Leon starts.

“Out!” Merlin shouts, and there’s a pause before Leon’s footsteps, and then the flap of the tent answers him. 

“They--are they--”

“They’re still fighting, but they’ll be okay, they know what they’re doing,” Merlin murmurs. “”Don’t worry about them. Just stay still, don’t move, and I’m going to heal you, okay? You’ll feel better in a moment.” 

Merlin closes his eyes, hand placed gingerly on Arthur’s sternum, and is opening his mouth to recite the incantation when an iron grip on his wrist stops him. 

“Don’t,” Arthur says hoarsely, and Merlin stares at him. His hand squelches against Arthur’s chest, and Arthur stifles a whimper. 

“What?” 

“You can’t heal me.” 

“What--why not?” 

Arthur’s hand thuds back to the ground beside the bedroll. “I know you,” he whispers. “And I’ve seen what you’ve done already today. You don’t have enough energy to heal me of a wound this deep.” 

“I can heal you just fine,” Merlin says, mouth twisting into a stubborn set. “Now shut up and don’t move.” 

“You are not doing it,” Arthur grits out. His eyes lock on Merlin’s through the fog of pain. “I can last until we get back to Camelot. By then you’ll be okay, and if you’re not, Gaius can help me.”

“Arthur, there’s nothing you can do to stop me,” Merlin says, a bitter smile curling at the edges of his mouth. “You’re half-dead. If you think I’m going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs while I watch your heart st--” 

“I can stop you,” Arthur says hoarsely. “Remember who I am.”

Merlin’s lips thin into a rigid line. “You’re my king. A weak, dying man.” 

“Your king. You...you owe your allegiance to me. To  _ me _ . Your magic, who you are...you promised it to me. You trusted it to me. And I am telling you right now that you are not going to do this. You are going to wait until we are back in Camelot and you are well enough to do something about it again.” 

“Please,” Merlin whispers. “Don’t do this. You’re hurt, horribly hurt, let me heal you. I can do it.” 

“No,” Arthur rasps. “You will stay here with me, and you will hold my hand, and you will shut up about it. Do you understand me?” 

Merlin tangles his slick, bloody fingers with Arthur’s. They’re cold, and Merlin doesn’t dare to wonder if it’s from the winter air or something else. 

The sounds of battle still permeate the tiny tent. Merlin is silent, listening to the screams, panting, the creak of chainmail, the screech of metal hitting skin and steel. The noise is clear as daylight, not a blur, but separate from each-other, individually identifiable. But Merlin is deaf to it all. The only thing he can hear is the death rattle of Arthur’s breath in his chest. 

The blood is drying on his hands, and it works like burning wax on his skin, cracking when he flexes them, crumbling when he rubs it off, numbing him to the inestimable feel of Arthur’s hands. 

“I love you,” Arthur says suddenly, and his fingers twitch. Merlin is already shaking his head by the time the words are halfway out of Arthur’s mouth; he had expected this. 

“If you try to say goodbye, so help me, I will strangle you with my own two hands before you get to finish.”

A weak grin crosses Arthur’s face. “Fine. What I really wanted to say is that I’m tired of you talking in your sleep and pulling the sheets off the bed, so from now on you sleep on the floor.” 

Merlin manages a laugh. “Works for me. I’m sick of you drooling on my pillow and squeezing me so tight I can’t breathe while I’m trying to sleep, so I’ll take the floor over you anytime.” 

The smile fades from Arthur’s mouth, and his hand tightens minutely around Merlin’s. “I do, you know,” he says softly. “I love you terribly.” A thin stream of blood dribbles from his mouth.

“By all the gods, Arthur, shut up,” Merlin snaps. He wipes the line of red from Arthur’s jaw.

Arthur makes a cracked, guttural sound that might pass for a chuckle. “I can’t talk to you?” 

“No, you can’t,” Merlin says. Blood is pulsing out of Arthur’s stomach slower now. His eyes are beginning to close. “But you can stay still.” 

Arthur’s eyes snap open. “Merlin--” he starts, but it’s already too late. Merlin is murmuring an incantation under his breath, and he claps a hand over Arthur’s mouth, gaze focused on the wound in his torso. He’s speaking so quickly that the words blur in his mouth, but it doesn’t matter, he can feel the magic rising like saltwater waves under his skin. It’s lapping bitter against the back of his throat and tugging at his navel, crackling harsh and burning hot under his fingertips, his eyes are awash in light the way they only are when his magic would rather snap his spine than perform what he wants it to do, but it’s working, he can feel it working, it hurts, every cell of him hurts, but it’s working, it’s working--

It’s a moment before Merlin realizes the earsplitting noise cleaving his head in half is the sound of Arthur screaming. 

-

“Merlin. Merlin, baby, it’s me. It’s Arthur. Can you hear me, sweetheart? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” 

“Mm...Arthur?” Merlin slurs. His eyes don’t seem to want to open. He’s pleasantly warm and comfortable, and his skin is tingling the way it always does after he’s done taxing magic. “S’that you?” 

“Oh, thank the gods,” he hears Arthur mutter. “Yeah, baby, it’s me. Can you open your eyes for me? Or squeeze my fingers?” 

Merlin’s eyes peel open slowly, unwilling, the insides of his eyelids as rough as a whetstone. At first he sees only a motley of colour swimming haphazardly above him, yellow and red and blue and pink and orange. 

“Pretty,” he tries to say, and the words come out like blots on parchment, muddy and awkward. 

“Try that again.” Arthur’s face swims languidly into focus. His blue eyes are narrowed down at Merlin, his cheeks pink with health and life, skin no longer sickly, no longer grey. 

“There you are,” Merlin mumbles. He tries to lift his hand to Arthur’s face, but his eyes flicker downwards and he finds his arm still lying by his side. 

“Yeah, I’m here.” 

“‘N so am I.” Merlin says, eyes fluttering shut again. He can’t remember the last time his body ached like this, or the last time he was so tired. He feels as though his body might sink into the ground. “Huzzah.” 

“No, no  _ huzzah _ . You almost killed yourself trying to keep me alive,” Arthur says, badly restraining the enmity in his voice. 

“Worked though,” Merlin says. He can’t seem to stop his words from sliding together. “You’re alive.” 

“No, Merlin. You don’t ever-- _ ever _ do that again, do you hear me? Never again. I swear to every god out there, all of them, every single one--you try that again and I will drag you into the deepest ring of hells.”

Merlin blinks. “That doesn’t...defeat the purpose?” 

“You’re missing the bit where the deepest ring of hell is you stuck in our room while I yell at you,” Arthur snaps. 

Merlin lets his head thump backwards. “That seems to fit.” 

Arthur’s jaw works as he stares at Merlin. “How do you feel?” he finally asks, with a withering air that indicates he’d rather be chewing on glass than asking that. 

“I feel fine.” 

“Don’t lie.” 

“Fine. I feel like every single hair on my body has been set afire and my bones have been splintered inside my body and are now floating merrily around in my bloodstream. Pleased now?” 

“No.” 

“Good,” Merlin says, with as much anger as he can muster while feeling deliriously pleased with himself. 

“Fine,” Arthur fires back.

“Take off your shirt.” 

There’s a pause. “What?” Arthur says, temporarily taken off guard.

“I want to see what I healed. Go on, show me.”

Arthur grits his teeth, and then slowly straightens and pulls off his shirt in one swift, agile move. Merlin props himself up on his elbows and stares. 

“Wow,” he breathes.

Where there was once a gaping wound, there now is nothing but a pink, puckered line drawn jaggedly across Arthur’s abdomen, like an artist’s sloppy sketch. It looks like it has been months, even years since this injury was received. Not hours. 

Merlin reaches an arm out and traces lightly along the scar. Arthur shudders under his searching fingers. 

“It’s gone,” Merlin says wonderingly. “Completely gone. Scarcely a mark to show where it was.” 

“Yes, your magic is a miracle,” Arthur says from between his teeth. “Are you finished yet?” 

Merlin lets his hand drop with a sigh. “What’s the issue here? Because I don’t see it. We’re both alive, you no longer have to go through months of painful recovery, and that would’ve been the best scene we could’ve hoped for. You should probably be in a grave. And instead here you are, alive and healed within a few minutes.” 

“It’s been six hours. You healed me six hours ago. By the time I could sit up, you were on the floor,” Arthur says shortly. “You were barely breathing. Your skin was hot to the touch, so hot that when I picked you up, I almost dropped you again. Your eyes were glowing from behind your eyelids.  _ Behind _ your eyelids, Merlin, they weren’t even open and I could see them glowing through your skin.” 

Merlin swallows. “Er--I love you?” 

“Somehow I got that,” Arthur snaps. “Risk your life so foolishly again and I will disembowel you with my own hand.”

Merlin rolls his eyes and then winces. “I thought someone just tried to do that to you.” 

“They succeeded, you great--” 

“Stop it with the name-calling,” Merlin says waspishly. “Just tell me you love me and be quiet if you’re not going to say thank you for saving my life.” 

Arthur stares at him, blue eyes shining with exasperation, a smile struggling not to twitch upwards. “Thank you for saving my life.” 

“You’re damn welcome.” 

“And I love you. More every single day I see you standing beside me, or lying in our bed, or sitting at the same table.”  A soft, genuine smile crosses Merlin’s face. “I love you too.” 

“I’m glad.” Arthur leans forward and kisses him briefly, and then pulls back with a frown. His thumb traces over Merlin’s mouth. “Your lips are still hot. You’re bound to have a fever after that much magic.”

“I feel okay. Don’t fuss.” 

“My  _ job _ is to fuss.”

“Your job is to make me feel better,” Merlin says archly. “Which you can do by holding my hand.” 

“Good,” Arthur says, grinning. His fingers, still painted in rough, dry blood, interlock with Merlin’s. “That was my plan all along.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
